I used to love saying her name. Caroline, with the i always long, because to make it short left it sounding like crinoline, a sweat-stained, mothballed Sunday hat pulled from an attic trunk. But Caroline with the i long created a sound roughly equivalent to the idea of a girl. The echo of a song in its three syllables, an age-old lyric not yet faded from memory.

whose breath can still the winds, Uncloud the sun, charm down the swelling sea, / And stop the floods of Heaven

Upon our way from hence we saw a young fellow riding towards us full gallop, with a bob wig and a black silken bag tied to it.

For years, the little tax-free extras or inducements took the form of “boot money” – a few notes left surreptitiously in a player's boot […]